In “The Silent Traders,” people are engaged in a constant system of barter between civilization and the wilderness. This interaction is clear when the narrator's children attempt to capture wild kittens, only to become trapped in the brush: "When they reached me, they had dead leaves and twigs entangled everywhere" (Tsushima 2). The narrator also writes: "[...] the name 'Rikugien' did not recall the tidy, sunny lawns seen by visitors, but the dark tangles along the walls" (2). Nature is the place where unwanted things are deposited. The overly sociable dog is dropped in the woods and is never seen again. There is something mysterious and even magical about wood; there things disappear and the wood evokes a question of "transformation" that can take place at night (4). The narrator seems to imply that something is happening in the woods that defies understanding and has a mystical element. This could also include his own children and their relationship with the cats that live in the woods, who could act as a surrogate “father” for the children. In this text, the characters live in an uneasy symbiosis with the natural world: “Fear and respect for the unknown in nature have the power to create folklore, and the characters